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Her Bestsellers Are
Rated G for Godliness

Updated April 27, 2001 12:01 a.m. ET

Lynchburg, Va.

T here's a little oasis of wholesomeness amid the sex-and-violence-saturated bestseller lists: Jan Karon's Mitford novels. Last week "A Common Life" (Viking, 186 pages, $24.95), the latest in her series about an Episcopal priest's good works in a fictional North Carolina town, entered The Wall Street Journal list at No. 1, beating out Danielle Steel's new bed-hopping drama for the top slot. If Ms. Karon's books seem like prim candystripers who have wandered into a red-light district, that is precisely...